Related Content

SEATTLE - Two people walking home from a party in the University District were assaulted and robbed at gunpoint early Saturday in an attack that was nearly identical to three others last weekend in the very same neighborhood, police said.

Seattle police spokeswoman Renee Witt said the two victims were walking home after a party at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday when two men jumped out of the bushes in the 5600 block of 16th Avenue NE.

The two men confronted the victims and one of them brandished a semi-automatic handgun, Witt said.

The man with the handgun struck both victims about the face with the handgun. One victim was then robbed of a cell phone, wallet and keys, and the two men fled on foot south on 16th Avenue NE.

Police arrived on scene and searched the area for the two, but could not find them. They are described as black men in their early 20s, both wearing navy or black hooded sweatshirts.

The victims were not seriously injured.

The attack comes just a week after three very similar armed robberies in the same University District neighborhood Sept. 29 during a 30-minute span of violence just a few blocks apart.

One person was arrested Monday in connection with that string of attacks, but police said at the time that there may be more suspects at large.

It is not known whether the most recent attack was carried out by those same suspects, but the method and the location were almost identical.

In all cases, a handgun was used to hit the victims and all were attacked just a few blocks from the University of Washington between NE 50th Street and NE 56th Street.

Witt said police continue to actively investigate all of the assaults.